Big Tech turned workers into cloud proles and everyone else into cloud serfs.

Evidence

Assuming, wrongly, that capitalism’s only serious threat was the rise of organised labour, I missed completely the epic transformation of our times: how the privatisation of the internet commons, aided by the 2008 crisis that led central banks to open the floodgates of state money, would beget a new, super-powerful type of capital. How this cloud capital would spawn a new ruling class. How revolutionary that new ruling class would prove, leveraging its cloud capital to make almost the whole of humanity work for them, either for free or for a pittance – including many capitalists. And, crucially, what a backward step all that would prove in the grander scheme of emancipating humanity and the planet from exploitation. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 444 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Aided by machines, it was waged workers who produced the stuff that was sold to generate profits, which in turn financed their wages and the production of more machines – that’s how capital accumulated and reproduced. Cloud capital, in contrast, can reproduce itself in ways that involve no waged labour. How? By commanding almost the whole of humanity to chip in to its reproduction – for free! — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 319 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Possessive individualism has always been detrimental to mental health. Technofeudalism made things infinitely worse when it demolished the fence that used to provide the liberal individual with a refuge from the market. Cloud capital has shattered the individual into fragments of data, an identity comprised of choices as expressed by clicks, which its algorithms are able to manipulate. It has produced individuals who are not so much possessive as possessed, or rather persons incapable of being self-possessed. It has diminished our capacity to focus by co-opting our attention. We have not become weak-willed. No, our focus has been stolen. — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 660 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Cloud platforms exploit nearly everyone rather than only their employees — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 873; The ultimate output of AI is turning everyone into unpaid cloud serfs; Cloud capital shatters individuals into manipulable fragments of data — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 660 (+9 more)

Related

• The ultimate output of AI is turning everyone into unpaid cloud serfs (similarity 0.91)
• Cloud capital made humanity work for free or a pittance (similarity 0.90)
• Modern AI and neural networks transform laborers into cloud proles and users into serfs (similarity 0.89)
• Cloud platforms exploit nearly everyone rather than only their employees (similarity 0.88)
• Cloud capital is physical networked machinery plus unwaged user labor (similarity 0.88)
• Unpaid cloud-serf labor shrinks aggregate demand and deepens economic crises (similarity 0.86)
• Cloud capital’s historic step was automating the command of humans, not replacing them (similarity 0.85)
• Cloud capital reproduces itself without waged labour, unlike all prior capital. (similarity 0.85)
• Cloud capital uniquely combines attention-holding, free labour and privatised transaction spaces (similarity 0.85)
• Cloud capital’s key innovation is self-reproduction through unpaid user labor (similarity 0.85)
• Users rather than paid employees produce cloud capital outside markets (similarity 0.84)
• Capital itself, mutated into cloud capital, has killed capitalism (similarity 0.83)
• Platforms create an essentially new servitude for users distinct from workplace exploitation (similarity 0.83)
• Traditional capitalists have become vassals to cloud capital’s feudal overlords (similarity 0.83)
• Cloud capital is capital’s mutation into feudal wealth extraction, not capital’s death (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• The ultimate output of AI is turning everyone into unpaid cloud serfs #corroborates (1.00)
• Cloud capital shatters individuals into manipulable fragments of data #complicates (1.00) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 660
• Cloud capital’s key innovation is self-reproduction through unpaid user labor #corroborates (1.00) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 319
• Cloud capital made humanity work for free or a pittance #corroborates (1.00) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 444
• Cloud capital is physical networked machinery plus unwaged user labor #corroborates (0.95) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 850
• Users rather than paid employees produce cloud capital outside markets #corroborates (0.90) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 334
• A new form of capital called cloud capital has emerged with unprecedented commanding power. #corroborates (0.90)
• Big Tech seized publicly funded technologies while claiming the language of the commons #complicates (0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 285
• Big Tech’s connectivity moonshots largely failed as businesses #complicates (0.75) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 498